NZNO's national office was abuzz with clucking and many offers
of babysitting when the Public Health Nurses' (PHN) Section
national committee met in Wellington last month. This was because
committee member Sarah Patrick made the trip from Timaru with
three-and-a-half-month-old Lucy in tow.

This year, the focus of the PHN section has been the formation of
the college of primary Health care nurses. Rosemarie Edlin has
represented PHNs on the Primary Health Care Nurses' Advisory
Committee and attended the meeting to update the committee. We are
grateful to Edlin for her continued commitment to this role. The PHN
committee believes it is imperative we have strong PHN representation on
the new PHC college committee. More information on this is available on
the PHN section webpage
www.nzno.org.nz/groups/sections/public_Health_nurses_.

The PHN section seminar day, which will be shared with the Nurses
for Children and Young People Aotearoa (NCYPA) section, is on November
24 in Hamilton. Held as a satellite day before the Paediatric Societys
scientific meeting, which nurses are welcome to attend, it will explore
the theme "The effects of poverty on children and young
people". Guest speaker is senior lecturer at the University of
Auckland and youth mental Health nurse Terryann Clarke. The NCYPA is
offering a "two registrations for the price of one" deal (see
nzno.org.nz/groups/sections/children_young_people). Both the PHN and
NCYPA section committees anticipate the day will be valuable for
networking and extending child nursing practice in New Zealand.

Both sections will hold their AGMs during the day. The NCYPA
national committee will be discussing three new initiatives: an
internship for short nursing exchanges; a free neonatal, paediatric and
child Health nursing journal for all NCYPA members (from the Australian
college); and travel scholarships to attend conferences. Next year,
NCYPA will be celebrating 100 years of children's nursing in New
Zealand.